


Marvelous Things

by buffydyke



Series: From Eden [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, idk - Freeform, it's slow build kind of, this is a sappy kid fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 18:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6716095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffydyke/pseuds/buffydyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ronan Lynch was three years old, he dreamt himself a brother.<br/>Twenty years later, he dreamt himself a daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marvelous Things

**Author's Note:**

> I made [a sappy post](http://lesbuffy.tumblr.com/post/143656417553/sappy-post-ahead-because-im-a-sappy-mood-im) recently that briefly mentioned how Adam and Ronan have helped me get through my recent break up, and. Well. Yeah. I have so many feelings about these two. 
> 
> Anyway, here's the first in a series of one-shots about the Lynch family. This not only serves as an introduction, but as a way that I could explore what family means to Ronan. 
> 
> Also introducing Fay Lynch because hello I am emotional
> 
> _**Slight**_ spoilers for The Raven King, but not really. 
> 
> Catch me on Tumblr at the link posted above for constant Pynch emotions and endless rambling.

When Ronan Lynch was three years old, he dreamt himself a brother. 

It was in the days before Ronan knew how miraculous a feat this was--how impossible it should have been. It was beyond his grasp and years that he was a _special_ sort of special; the type that defied all reason and explanation. But on the night Ronan pulled a tiny blond baby from the depths of his mind, Niall Lynch knew his son was a marvelous thing all his own.

“ _Ronan._ ” 

Ronan Lynch had always remembered the different ways his father said his name. How each meaning behind it rolled differently off his tongue, had a different way of settling in a room. Even from an early age, he had been able to pick out the secret meanings behind his father’s words, even if they were simplified in these stages of beginning.

On that particular night, _Ronan_ had meant _what the fuck have you done?_

Niall Lynch hovered directly over the bed, eyes locked on the scene that had unfolded.

The baby was, for lack of a better term, _losing his shit_. His jolting wails were what had awoken the family in the first place. All except Ronan. The baby’s crying hadn’t been the cause of his waking up; they had simply been a side effect. 

Ronan found his tiny hand smoothing calm, continuous circles over the baby’s fuzzy head. He was desperate to settle him. It was a tender gesture, especially for a three year old. Even then, the little thing lying on his bed tugged at Ronan’s heart. He loved him. Fully and uncomplicatedly. Everything about him was fascinating, really. He was so soft and small, so gentle and trusting. Perhaps that was the trait that baffled Ronan the most: trust. 

Even from the beginning, this baby was already so unlike the other two Lynch brothers. At three and four, Ronan and Declan were unmistakably smaller versions of what they would become. Two brothers in constant battle. 

The eldest Lynch brother watched helplessly from the door frame. He clung fervently to his mother’s hip, eyes locked on the actors in the scene laid out before him: his father, Ronan, and a miraculous baby. His stance was unmistakable--he was afraid. 

Afraid. Of what?

Ronan wasn’t afraid. This was a baby--a tiny, gentle living creature. Hardly different from the tiny birds or bunnies that jittered around in the fields outside.

It was nothing to be feared. Even with the prying eyes on him, Ronan leaned in and whispered something to him, inaudible to everyone but its receiver. 

“ _I’m Ronan._ ”

He considered adding an “I love you” at the end of it, but even a young Ronan couldn’t bring himself to do it. Even as he grew older, Ronan Lynch was good at not telling lies, not necessarily telling the truth. 

Gradually, the baby began to calm. His little fists were still clenched tightly from exertion, from the shock of being drug from one world to another, but his fervent cries had dissolved into soft whimpers. He had instead opted to scan the room, eyes darting from surface to surface. Face to face. Amazement and wonder. 

In that moment, Ronan Lynch--newfound dreamer--looked up at his father with a wide smile spread across his face. “Baby.”

Niall Lynch quietly straightened. That had been a night of revelations--that his now middle son was like him in ways he had only been able to fathom. That even at this young of an age, his son was able to pull living creatures from his dreams. That Ronan Lynch was truly and utterly a marvelous thing.

A marvelous, terrifying thing.

Like father, like son.

Niall had stared down at his son--sons--for a few moments, shaking his head as a sigh broke through. He muttered a quiet “ _what the fuck_ ” under his breath, too low for Ronan to hear. His son was already testing his own vocabulary in that department--Aurora had advised Niall to start holding his tongue.

In a resounding gesture, Niall Lynch scooped up the tiny baby. He was now squirming and testing out his new limbs, already so eager for life. Niall rested him against his chest. 

_Safe. Sound. Secure._

Ronan watched his father with wide eyes, his legs curled under him in a way only a toddler could find comfortable. It was wonder, Niall realized, that captivated his son. Both in dreams and in life, Ronan Lynch was full of wonder.

“Yeah, kid,” he said. He flashed the stark grin that Ronan himself would one day inherit: raw and wild. “ _Baby._ ”

It had started and ended with a dream. Ronan Lynch had gone to sleep with the desire for a little brother: a little brother with a love that was pure, uncomplicated, and undemanding. And when he awoke, he had one. A dream fulfilled by a dream.

Even in dreams, family was the most important thing to him.

What was family? Ronan thought for the longest time that he knew the answer. It was such a small word packed with such big, profound meaning. It even set heavily on his tongue-- _family_. Like Niall Lynch’s words, it had several meanings behind it each time it was said.

The trouble, naturally, was that there were several ways to arrive at that answer. _What was family?_

One to an answer, undoubtedly, was in a textbook. 

Ronan’s relationship with academics was complicated. By the age of fourteen, he had already settled into a routine of disdain for them. If he wanted knowledge of something, he would seek it. He didn’t want to shoulder information for seven hours a day; information that he hadn’t sought out himself. 

Niall Lynch had, undoubtedly, been the same way. Perhaps that’s why Ronan was so shocked when he found the dictionary lying forgotten under one of the Barn’s many coffee tables. He thought at first that it was Declan’s--ever studious, ever shouldering information he himself hadn’t sought out--but there was an unmistakable “ _N.L._ ” scribbled on the inside of the book’s cover. 

_No_ , Ronan eventually decided. This wasn’t something to be shocked about. It was perhaps the most _Niall Lynch_ academic tool there was--a methodical gate for finding what you wanted to know. A bank of information waiting to be searched and explored. 

By extension, then, it was also the most _Ronan_ Lynch academic tool.

From the outside, the object was inconspicuous enough. It was well preserved, but old nonetheless, the cover and inside musty from the settling of age.

It had reminded Ronan of the Barns. 

One day, while spread loftily out on the living room floor, he opened the pages of the book. Ronan couldn’t quite pinpoint what had driven him to do it--there was nothing particularly pressing on his mind that he needed a definition for. Nothing that needed an immediate answer. It was before the time when questions would become an everyday part of Ronan’s life.

The pages were blank.

Ronan’s brows furrowed, knitted in a questioning concentration. It seemed unlikely that a dictionary would be lacking words. That was its purpose, wasn’t it? A purpose of giving information and answers through its pages.

Unless it had been dreamt. By this age, Ronan couldn’t rule that out as a possibility. 

Niall Lynch’s dream things sometimes took playing with to understand. Ronan knew this from the experience of both the objects of Niall’s dreams as well as his own--what came out of your head didn’t always make sense at first glance. 

Ronan tried thinking of a word, holding it in his head. It was impractical, of course, that a book would be able to read his thoughts, but a dream thing wasn’t always practical.

He settled on a word.

_Fuck._

Nothing happened. Ronan’s brows knitted further. That wasn’t how this worked, then. He’d try another way. Trial and error: that’s how these things went.

Ronan sat up just enough to search around the coffee table. There were several pens and pencils lying discarded against the refurbished wood, forgotten relics. He opted for a pencil. The idea of using a pen for a method that may not work didn’t set quite right with him, for some reason.

In his jagged, harsh writing, Ronan spelled out the word: _Fuck_. 

Still nothing. The book was unresponsive. With the slightest grin, Ronan thought: _Maybe it’s a prude._

He was running out of options. If it didn’t respond to thoughts or writing, the only other route Ronan could conceive was to speak it. 

Staring down at the blank, yellowed pages of the book, Ronan let the word roll off his tongue: “ _Fuck._ ” 

After a brief lull, the magic of Niall Lynch’s creation began to unfold. Ronan watched as the words unfurled before him in stark, scribbled lines: his father’s handwriting.

_Fuck (v.): to have sexual intercourse with (someone)._

It brought a smirk to Ronan’s face. Whether it was from the definition itself or the satisfaction of having cracked this code was anyone’s guess.

_So. That’s how this thing works._

Ronan knew fully well that there was more than one definition for the word--he was certain he’d used it in every context. Still, the book seemed to cater itself to one definition at a time. Perhaps, Ronan considered, it chose the answer that would best satisfy the asker. 

Tentatively, Ronan tried out another word. 

“ _Dream._ ”

The book went to work. 

_Dream (n.): a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep._

Sensations. Ronan wasn’t sure there was a better way to put how dreams made him feel. Maybe this book knew a lot more than he did. Literally and metaphorically. 

Again, Ronan commanded the book: “ _Family._ ”

The curl and line of words, a truth spread out on paper.

_Family (n.): all the descendants of a common ancestor._

Ronan stared at the definition for a few moments. Something about it was unsettling. It wasn’t untrue--descendants from ancestors was a plausible definition of family. He and the other residents of the Barns fit that description: they were all stems from the tree of Lynch.

Still, it was unsatisfying.

That was how Ronan arrived at the second way to answer his own question: he made it up.

Family was a feeling. It was the way his father always seemed to know what to say to make Ronan feel important, it was the way his mother knew the different ways to love each of her children. It was the way his younger brother still made his heart clench and the way his older brother still made him want to punch things.  
It was a communion of love, of mutual understanding. It wasn’t always easy, but it was something that was undying. It was something that would stand the tests of time. 

Over and over, life tested Ronan Lynch’s concept of family. 

All Ronan knew was family, and for the longest time, the only thing he knew to be absolutely true about himself was that he loved them. This little group that Niall Lynch himself had built--this unconventional gathering of loud Irish men and a woman who looked upon them all with utmost care and devotion--was all he had ever known. It never ceased to amaze him.

His little brother--called Matthew a few mere hours after a dream brought him to life--held a special place in Ronan’s heart. A place that bewildered him. How was it possible to love someone this much? To want so deeply to protect them?

Hell, Matthew held a special place in the hearts of everyone he met. He just had that _way_ about him. A way of captivation. Declan had a way about him too, as Ronan learned. Only, it seemed his _way_ was one of constantly finding new means to piss Ronan off. Still, Ronan loved him. In his own special, complicated way, Ronan loved him.

Family was forever. Family was undying. Family was permanent. 

And then his father died.

Family, as Ronan learned that morning--that gruesome, horrible morning--, could dissolve as easily as it appeared.

Aurora Lynch shared more in common with Matthew than Ronan had originally known. When his mother fell into a waking coma, a part of Ronan went with her. Losing two parents was more than he had ever braced himself to cope with.

Family wasn’t undying. How easily this--the only thing he had ever known--could be taken from him.

But Ronan Lynch was nothing without family. 

So he built his own.

Over the years, it had grown to include more people than he had ever imagined. Ronan didn’t particular consider himself to be a likable person--he was so rough, sharp--and yet he had still managed to find a group who was willing to accept him for all that was (and all he was not).

Gansey. Noah. Even Blue Sargent (no--especially Blue Sargent. He’d always wanted to be able to regard someone as his sister). They were all his family, in every wonderful, marvelous way.

The key, though, was Adam Parrish.

Adam became his family in more ways than one. Best friend. Boyfriend. Husband. He broke down the walls that Ronan had put up around himself.

At the wedding, they had called it a union of family. Ronan couldn’t have found a better way to describe it. And there, surrounded by the family he had created (no, that had created him) Ronan couldn’t remember a time when he had felt happier.

They decorated St. Agnes in flowers from Ronan’s dreams. 

Blue and Gansey, as always, were vagabonds. They had never settled in one particular place, always on the hunt for something more. Even after they had both graduated from college, they continued their searches. Ronan fully believed that one day, there wouldn’t be a single inch of land on this Earth that the team of _Gansey and Sargent_ hadn’t trekked upon. 

Ronan spent his time at the Barns. Adam split his time between the Barns and D.C. As much as Ronan wished his childhood home could be their permanent residence, he knew that Adam’s work was important. He’d fought so hard for this; to be something that he, Adam Parrish himself, could be proud of. Ronan wouldn’t take that away from him.

He wasn’t alone. Opal--the little hoofed girl that Ronan had brought back from his dreams--kept him company. Adam and Ronan hadn’t officially called her their daughter; she seemed so impossibly _something more_. Was there a word that could describe something more than a daughter? An unfathomable, unintentional combination of both Adam and Ronan’s souls?

Ronan guessed not. That was, he supposed, not something that his father’s magic dictionary had the answer to.

That didn’t stop him from sending Adam pictures of the _combination of their souls_ eating weird shit from around the Barns. 

Matthew stayed with him sometimes, too. Despite Declan’s constant fear, Matthew had insisted upon it. His affections for Ronan ran as deep as Ronan’s ran for Matthew. On his own breaks from college, Matthew would make his way to the Barns. Sometimes Declan would follow. Sometimes he wouldn’t. They were days of joy, and they were days of family. 

All Ronan Lynch knew was family. Maybe that was why he was constantly filled with the yearn for more. The desire for it to keep growing. 

One night, after Adam had made the nearly five hour journey back from D.C., Ronan brought it up.

“Let’s have a baby.”

Adam was, admittedly, half asleep. Maybe that had been Ronan’s tactic--to corner him before he fell off into a different realm. Mostly, though, it just felt right. Adam was in his arms, pressed _closecloseclose_ , Ronan’s breath hot and gentle on his neck.

“Mm,” Adam had hummed. His eyes were already closed, threatening to cross into the realm of sleep. “We have a baby.”

Ronan had prepared himself for this. Prepared his arguments. That in itself wasn’t like him--Ronan didn’t prepare his fights. He took them as they came.

This, though, seemed too important for that.

“Different.” 

“Not different.”

Ronan mumbled, his fist bumping lightly on Adam’s shoulder from where he lay behind him. Ronan himself was about as far off from sleep as he could possibly have been. “Yeah. _Different_. Come on, man. Talk to me about this.” 

Adam begrudgingly opened his eyes. They stung from the desire to sleep--the drives from D.C. were always hard on him. He turned to face Ronan. “Okay. I’ll talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Let’s have a baby.”

Adam was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Ronan?”

Ronan’s brows furrowed. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

He knew the answer. He didn’t want to think it.

“Because,” Adam started after a few beats of silence. He had been thinking of how to word this. “This would be something you… I don’t know. _Purposefully_ brought into the world. So we’d be even more responsible if something happened.”

He took particular care with the last word.

Happened. Ronan knew the insinuation behind that. It was a known fact that if something happened to Ronan, his dream things would stop. Every living thing that he had brought into the world would fall into a sleep--a mournful sleep for their lost dreamer. 

He hadn’t meant to bring Opal out of his dreams. He hadn’t meant to bring Matthew out of his dreams either, in a conventional sense. 

This was different. Ronan wished it wasn’t. 

“We have Cabeswater.”

The new Cabeswater--the one that Ronan had dreamt up to replace the one that now pulsed through the veins of Richard Campbell Gansey III--could keep his dream things alive after he was gone. Opal was in love with the landscape, the whispering trees and the murmuring streams. Their new baby would fall in love with it too, Ronan told himself. 

“Is that enough?”

Ronan didn’t know the answer.

This was also something that his father’s dream dictionary didn’t have the answer to.

Life was full of things that couldn’t be answered. Why had Ronan Lynch been an orphan at 18? Why had Adam Parrish dealt with more than any human being should ever have to?

Why had it taken them so long to realize that they deserved love?

Life was full of things that couldn’t be answered.

Two weeks later, Ronan prepared to bring a baby out of his dreams.

Adam had offered to scry beside him on the bed, but Ronan had refused. He needed to do this alone. He needed to have this moment--this one, brief moment--to himself. 

He dreamt of Cabeswater. 

The sky was bright about him, this dreamed sun beating down golden rays of light that touched everything around him. The trees were singing. Their harmonies filled the air, circling every rock, every blade of grass, every creature that inhabited this world. 

_Corvus et cervus._

Among a thicket of grass, Ronan found her.

An unmistakable blend of Lynch and Parrish. Only the novelty of her new life had softened her sharp Lynch features, and only time had kept her sandy Parrish hair from curling out.

She was beautiful.

So Ronan brought her back.

Adam had told him a story once. It was of a memory, of course--a memory turned into a story. Adam had told him about how, once, his father had told him that he regretted the moment he had been born. That he regretted the fact that Adam had ever come into existence.

Ronan couldn’t imagine how someone could feel contempt for something they had created.

Because, in Ronan’s automated suspense from his body, there was something lying inches from him on the mattress that he had created.

She didn’t cry at first. The shock from being pulled from one world to another rendered her inaudible. She had merely lied there, her fists balled in concentration and legs scrunched from not knowing how to control them yet.

Then, she wailed.

It was simultaneously the most beautiful and the most heartbreaking thing Ronan Lynch had ever heard.

Raw and wild. Untamed. 

Adam sat near them, his hand beginning to smooth calm, continuous circles over the baby’s fuzzy head. It was a gesture that panged nostalgia from Ronan.

But he had control of his body once again, and there was no time for nostalgia. Gently, he lifted their daughter into his arms, shushing and cradling her against his chest.

_Salvi poteremur domi._

They name her Aurora Faline.

Niall Lynch’s dream book could perhaps tell them the meaning behind this. How Aurora came with a meaning of _dawn_ and Faline of _in charge_. 

Ronan, though, just thought it was pretty.

They call her Fay.

When Ronan Lynch was three years old, he dreamt himself a brother.

Twenty and some odd years later, he dreamt himself a daughter. 

He truly was a creator of beautiful, marvelous things.


End file.
